BILLIONAIRE'S CLUB: NORTH CAROLINA-BASED INVESTMENT ADVISERS WITH MORE THAN $1 BILLION UNDER MANAGEMENT.

Weak stock and bond markets caused a difficult year for North Carolina's major money managers in 2022, following several years of consistent gains. Only four of the 29 institutions with more than $1 billion of assets under management reported increases from the previous year. That was a major change from 2021, when more than 75% of the managers recorded double-digit increases in assets.

The S&P 500 Index declined 19.6% in 2022, while the Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index dipped 13%, its worst performance since the index's inception in 1976.

No. 1-ranked Raleigh-based CapFinancial Partners, which does business as Captrust Financial Advisors, showed growth by buying smaller U.S. wealth management groups. It has done 65 deals since 2006, including acquisitions of managers in Minnesota and Texas this year.

The data is based on the companies' most recent annual filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which describes the number of employees, assets and key owners. Private equity groups and asset managers based outside of North Carolina, such as Vanguard and Fidelity, are not included.

Asheville-based Parsec Financial Management, which ranked 12th last year, dropped off after it was acquired by Westwood, New Jersey-based Modera Wealth Management. DHG Wealth Advisors, which was No. 22 last year, is now part of Springfield, Missouri-based Forvis Wealth after the merger of Charlotte-based parent DHG and Missouri-based BKD, two large CPA firms.

ASSETS UNDER MANAGEMENT (BILLION); [up arrow][down arrow] CHANGE FROM 2021 1. CAPFINANCIAL PARTNERS Raleigh $715 +$60 [up arrow] 9.2% Owns Captrust, which has more than 1,300 employees at 75 U.S. locations. 2. BARINGS Charlotte $273 -$34 [down arrow] -11.1% Investment manager operates globally and is a subsidiary of MassMutual. 3. STERLING CAPITAL MANAGEMENT Charlotte $62 -$13 [down arrow] -17.3% Scott Haenni became CEO in March, succeeding Alex McAlister. It's a subsidiary of Truist. 4. WELLS FARGO INVESTMENT INSTITUTE Raleigh $38 -$13.2 [down arrow] -25.8% Most executives of the Wells Fargo unit work in St. Louis. 5. ALIGHT FINANCIAL ADVISORS Charlotte $30.8 -$1.3 [down arrow] -4% Acts as a recordkeeper for retirement plans. Unit of publicly traded Alight. 6. ALUMINA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Charlotte $10.8 $0.1 4 0.9% Former Carlyle Group executive Greg Kares started the firm in 2012. 7. GLOBAL ENDOWMENT MANAGEMENT Charlotte $10.6 -$2.4 [down arrow] -19.7% Most clients are universities and...